Needlecase Collection

Hi
I have been soooooooooooooo busy the last week or so ... all the preparations for the workshop I am teaching at the Australian Lace Guild in 3 and a half weeks are coming to a crescendo! ... I have spent the last 4 days winding Enamel Coated Copper coloured Wire onto small reels, selecting beads and putting "findings" into little "kit" bags for the students who are participating .... those doing the 2 day workshop will make one or other of the 2 sets of jewellery (See first blog entry for last February) or if they are doing the 4 day workshop and are very industrious!!! they can have a go at both designs! I have also been varnishing around 180 bobbins and still have a batch of about 50 to start varnishing! Here is a pic which I took at the Lace Day back in June and forgot was in the camera .. the display for the meeting was "Needlecases" (I started collecting needlecases just over 5 years ago) ...these are the fabric ones made by me and various luvly friends and I will post a pic in a couple of days of some of the cases which are made from wood, bone, metal etc...... If you click on the pic you can see more detail ....(Pat do you recognise yours? :D)

Stitchety Grubs Stitches

Hi

These two pics (specifically) for my "fellow" Stitchety Grub Embroidery Gals ... a pic of Ros's "Chambray blues" jacket and Colleen's Crazy patch bag (with of course her own handmade bobbin lace on it!) We have all done our last Month's Pekinese Stitch and are now onto this month's "Chain Stitch" -I haven't actually started mine yet but I know which little square of my Pantoran (see earlier blog postings) I will do it on ....I will do it in fine thread as ripples around the gorgeous "totoise" button a lace friend gave me 2 years ago ...I have been saving it for something special ... now is the time haha! I will ofcourse post a pic when done ....I have been busy varnishing around 180 bobbins at the mo and a another batch of 40-50 will need doing after that .... and I am also working on the Wire Lace workshop notes and of course luvly ATC's .... (spoken or rather written like a true addict haha! :-D) No peace for the wicked!!! he he he waggling eybrows!

ATC's ...still haha!

This is a pic of my first ATC which I made back in March for Pat (Hi Pat :D) I forgot I had taken a pic of it and it was loaded on along with the other various pics which I finally put on my puter last weekend. My last post was Sunday and on Monday I made another 8 ATC's ...yep am getting addicted haha! but haven't taken a pic yet ... haven't had time. I did take the ATC's along to one of the Lace Groups I go to on Wednesday to try and get the others to have a go (not sure any will!) There was a lacemaker lady visiting from New Zealand and she seemed very keen so I gave her one of my ATC's to get her started! I am madly preparing my teaching notes and patterns for the Conference next month ...the days are going by soooooooo fast .. .I will be going down to Albany 3 weeks tomorrow and will spend 2 whole days working on my Russian mat, yakking, eating, boozing! (in the evenings gotta have a glass of vino!) and generally veging out ... it's gonna be great! 'specially as there will be me and my mate, Ros (we usually both go) and 2 mates who are flying over early (for a bit of a holiday before the conference) from Victoria. Waa hoo!

Russian mat "update"

As promised a couple of weeks ago... here is an updated pic of my Russian Mat ... I really haven't had much chance to work on it this year ... only the odd "Lace Day" here and there and as all lacemakers know (those who attend Lace Days) you only get to put in a few pins at a lace day- 6 if you are lucky hahahaha! :-D

I am planning on taking it down to Albany in early September to work on it over the 2 days of their "Lace Weekend" . (For those of you overseas - Albany is a little town down South of Perth it is a solid 5 hour drive from my house ... so my friends and I will head down on a Friday ... make Lace for 2 days (Yay!) then head back on the Monday!). This will be my 14th consecutive "Albany Weekend" I will have to paint myself a bobbin to commemmorate year 15 next year! and take some "bubbly" down :-D oh and of course choccie haha!

Lacey ATC's

Hi

Here is a pic of 6 of the ATC's which I have been busy with over the last few days... I have done an additional 9 too but they are for specific people and I will try to remember to post the pic of them in about 7 weeks time after the Aus Lace Guild conference week.

All the lace is hand made - using a variety of techniques: tatting, and bobbin lace ... I bought some more sequins last week too ...dontcha luv it when you get something new like that and you sew them onto everything ... my son better make sure he doesn't stand still near me or he could end up with them on his Footy shirt (he might get a 'complex"..... though of course he has known for years that his Mum is nuttier than a fruit cake hahaha! :-D)

From "Duster" to artwork!

Hi
Here is a pic of one of the dusters which Pat at
http://alteringthoughts.blogspot.com/ sent me back in mid March. I ironed tiny bits of polyester "fluff" stuff which I bought for a couple of dollars onto it (I think I mentioned this in previous blog entries) then added Angelina fibres, stuck it between "glad Bake" paper and ironed it -then free motion embroidered it with metallic thread. Next I will add some bits of various knitting wools ... and do a bit more machine embroidery then embellish with bits of my hand made lace, sequins, beads etc ..... I will use some of it to make ATC's for the upcoming Australian Lace guild Conference swap ... If there's anyone out there in "blogland" reading this who would like to exchange ATC's with me please do get in touch :-D - there is supposed to be a display of ATC"s at the conference as well as the swapping going on but all I have is one card which the lovely Pat sent me when she sent the duster package and a set of 9 made by the Lace Guild Committee gals last year which I was lucky enough to win.... I am so "behind the eight ball" when it comes to ATC's mainly 'cos time has been scarce this year! I have lots of embroidery projects planned for after this years conference ... the teaching side of things is a great consumer of time!

Inchies with tiny tatted bits!

Hi

I have been really busy the last week and a half hence why I haven't had a chance to do any blog entries!

I also have some pics in the camera and need to take some more. I have been doing a few ATC's ready for the swaps that will be taking place during the Australian National AGM Conference week at the end of September! Here are a couple of pics of the early stages of some of the Inchies I made a few weeks ago.... I have been also madly tatting tiny little bits to embellish them with.

I am trying to get my bobbin orders done too ... on Monday there was a vague light at the end of the tunnel but yesterday and again today I had a couple more orders come in hmmmmm. So it's into the studio tomorrow and time to get the paints running "hot"... I went to an op shop today and managed to get a copy of a big book by Steve Parish of Australian Rainforests ... beaut ... as it is the theme for the 2009 Australian Lace Guild Triennial Lace Competition ... I already had 2 books on this topic but I had coveted this one several years ago when I was doing the City & Guilds..... back then I borrowed it from the local library.. so Yay! :-D I am doing a happy dance that I have my own copy ...haven't had a chance to look through it yet but when I move away from this computer tonight and over to my comfy chair with my cuppa tea and some choccie I can give it my full attention!

A few weeks ago my daughter helped me update to the newer blog and she put a pic up for my "title" but unfortunately I lost my Blog Embellisher ring logo box thingie and also my Neo Counter ... foobah! I guess I will have to redo it sometime :-(